University of Virginia Library

Like evolving like

Nature and revelation inform us that like produces like. Divine Science does not gather grapes from thorns nor figs from thistles. Intelli- gence never produces non-intelligence; but matter is

ever non-intelligent and therefore cannot spring from intelligence. To all that is unlike unerring and eternal Mind, this Mind saith, "Thou shalt surely die;" and else- where the Scripture says that dust returns to dust. The non-intelligent relapses into its own unreality. Matter never produces mind. The immortal never produces the mortal. Good cannot result in evil. As God Himself is good and is Spirit, goodness and spirituality must be im- mortal. Their opposites, evil and matter, are mortal error, and error has no creator. If goodness and spirit- uality are real, evil and materiality are unreal and can- not be the outcome of an infinite God, good.

Natural history presents vegetables and animals as preserving their original species, - like reproducing like. A mineral is not produced by a vegetable nor the man by the brute. In reproduction, the order of genus and species is preserved throughout the entire round of nature. This points to the spiritual truth and Science of being. Error relies upon a reversal of this order, asserts that Spirit produces matter and matter produces all the ills of flesh, and therefore that good is the origin of evil. These suppositions contradict even the order of material so-called science.